Feverishly Writing

Fever.
When you infect me,
fever and you make me lame.

I gots the Covids.

Yet, I am still testing negative with the rapid home tests, so I will do another in the morning to make sure, before going to have the official one. I have the same symptoms my wife had and has though, so I am "pretty sure" it is positive.

I have a high fever and a cough for now, as well as a blocked nose - but nothing too bad as of yet. I am touching wood on that though, as who the hell knows. The people I know who have had it however, aren't in such bad condition over all.

Before the fever, I took my daughter out to the park, because she has spent far too much time inside the last few days. Yesterday, I took her for a bike ride and she is getting more confidence - though still unwilling to put the breaks on hard and struggles to get started by herself. She'll get there.

I have always said, "don't blockchain and drink" (even though I am no stranger myself), because once it is on chain, there is no taking it back. I think the same should be said whilst having a high fever, because delirium speech doesn't look good on anyone. But, I tend to not follow my own recommendations on these things, because I enjoy "testing" myself under various conditions. Because I have so much experience posting, I can very quickly feel the difference in my process and find it interesting to see "what breaks" and what doesn't. I also think that it is kind of like resiliency training, where working under suboptimal conditions allows me to better deliver under good conditions.

Honestly, I don't know if this works or not, but over the years it has become quite important to take advantage of the opportunity, which is why I haven't missed a day of posting in so long.

It was about this time four years ago, that we awoke to Smallsteps having convulsions and was unresponsive, just staring ahead and twitching. I held her as my wife called emergency and while calm, what was going through my head wasn't pleasant. Those days in the hospital were very hard and in the end, they don't know what caused it. In a few weeks it will be the one year anniversary of my stroke, which while mild in terms of what it could have been, has fundamentally and forever changed me in so many ways.

But through both of those events I wrote each day too and was trying to be aware of what changed in me personally, as well as what I was willing to share publicly. There is very little I hold back from my thoughts on this chain, but of course, it is natural to censor ourselves in order to protect ourselves in some way. Especially these days, where people tend to take the most uncharitable view of opinions, if it suits their agenda.

I dislike the approach so many people have to content these days by punishing content creators around the globe, because rather than increasing the quality and range, it has a centralization effect, making people become voyeuristic, not participative. Of course, not all content deserves the light of day, and once it becomes obviously abusive, it should be discouraged.

Discouraged. A negative incentive. On Hive, this is done though downvotes of course, but while I think that some people don't get it still, it is probably the most effective crowd sourced mechanism on any platform. On most platforms, the expectation is that "policy" is the job of the platform, not the community. While they do take lead from community feedback, most of that feedback is agenda'd and even though a user has no skin in the game, they have an equal voice to skew the mechanisms. This is highly abusive and what it does is drives the platform to gear their policies toward a centralized content profile, where very few people are driving the narrative and, because the platform is funded by ad revenue, the narrative has to fit with generating profits.

This puts all the power of content meant for the community, in the hands of the minority of the platform owners and, the minority of the outspoken community. Look at the standup comedians now, having to explain that they are comedians and if they say something anyone disagrees with, the outspoken minority looks to "cancel" them.

What they don't realize is that comedy is in the uncomfortable, the irony, the "shouldn't say that" because it is an artform delivered through words, and it is meant to make us laugh and then question whether we should laugh. No matter what the joke, there are always people who will get upset when it "feels" like a personal attack on them.

The comedian doesn't know you or your history. It isn't personal.

Personal. Personality.

We seem to omit our own personality from the equation when judging the content we consume, thinking that our opinion is globally accepted, that everyone feels the same as we do. Funny how we don't consider how oppressive and prejudiced this is though.

For me, I sit here each day and try to deliver something to the audience that is enjoyable and useful in some way and, discover a little more about myself through the exploration of my daily mind. Each day it is different and even when I write about the same topics, they have most likely evolved slightly since the last time I wrote about it, making the stream of words a representation of my changing views and personality across time, altered by experience and a maturing process. As they say,

it is the journey, not the destination.

And on that note, I will end with saying I appreciate those who take the time when they can, to be part of this journey with me and hopefully, I have become a small part of theirs. This is what communities are - shared experiences. A community doesn't mean it is going to be easy, or everyone gets along and agrees, but together through trial and error, we form a culture that while always changing, still ties us all in together.

The world of control is looking to break those bonds and isolate us.

Each day make the decision, not to let them.